Merlin's Coven

Merlin’s Coven

Chapter 10

“The Dark Lord is close. Keep quiet,” Draco said to Harry Potter who was holding his head and wincing.

“Is it your scar again?” Ron whispered, draping an arm around his friend. Draco surveyed their position. They were standing in a field, on a rolling plain. The man in the moon poked his face through the clouds and for a moment, and Draco could see a muggle house in the distance, before the moon was swallowed up again by the dark gloomy puffs in the evening sky. His arm burned again and he held it out to see the serpent on his arm slithering and moving. Suddenly green light lit up the sky overhead.

“It’s the Dark Mark,look!” Ron announced. “What do you think happened?” Draco knew what had happened. Somebody was murdered. Harry knew it too, by the way he started running through the tall weeds.

“Potter stop! You fool!” Draco ran after him and finally tackled him on the soggy ground. “We need a plan. You can’t just run right into the devil’s lair without a plan! I’m not going to get myself bloody killed on account of your ruddy girlfriend, either. I have a wife and child to think about now,” Draco chastised.

“I’m sorry, but what if it was Cho?”

“Then if it was, she would already be dead, and running in there would be suicide Potter. It wasn’t her though. She’s having the Dark Lord’s baby and he needs her alive, at least until the baby is born,” Draco reasoned with Harry, who didn’t seem to thinking straight. He couldn’t blame him much though. If it had been Hermione, Voldemort had in there, then he too would have wanted to save her. He wouldn’t bolt right in with wands a blazing though. Draco was more methodical then that.

“There’s a barn next to the house. Let’s get to the barn and then we can figure out what to do next,” Draco said and since none of the trio had a better plan, they all crept silently through the field. It felt like the heavens would open up and pour at any moment. The smell of fear was in the air as they made their way closer to the farmhouse. As they approached the barn, Draco ducked inside and Harry and Ron followed.

“Bloody hell, it’s a torture chamber!” Ron said, gulping hard at seeing a muggle slaughterhouse, which is apparently what the barn was used for. Sharp tools and sickles and pitchforks and hatchets, it was an animal house of death.

“So what now?” Ron said.

“Now, we have to find a way into the house,” Harry said.

“Just hold on a minute. Let’s think this through a little bit. I can’t believe you’ve made it his far Potter. You just want to charge in like a fucking idiot. I know the Dark Lord and what he’s capable of. He could have enchantments right here, right now, listening to us.

“Even more reason to go!” Harry said. “Look, I’m going. If you don’t want to come then fine. I’m going right now though.

“Pardon his sir, but if you will allow me to enter the house, I could tell you,” Worth said. Draco had forgotten all about the little forest sprite.

“Yes, Worth go, now!” Draco commanded and the creature disappeared.

“I hear voices close by,” Ron whispered and all three men ceased talking immediately.

“Who cast the mark? Now the aurors will be arriving.” Draco recognized that voice. That was the voice of his godfather, and Potions Professor, Severus Snape. Harry gritted his teeth and grimaced upon hearing it. He wanted to kill Snape for the death Dumbledore. It took everything in him, not to bolt right out, wand in hand, hexing him into oblivion, like the Potions Professor had done to his mentor Dumbledore, the greatest sorcerer to ever live.

“Scared, Severus?” Voldemort hissed and then cackled.

“Never my lord. It’s just, with the girl, I’d think you would want to be more careful. Killing muggles for fun, at this juncture, seems lacking of intellect.” Severus said nervously. There was silence. Voldemort suddenly burst into a fit of laughter.

“That took guts to speak in that regard, Severus. You amuse me.”

“I live to serve my Lord,” Snape said. “Will the girl be returning to Hogwarts?” Harry’s ears perked up at that mention of a girl. It had to be Cho.

“Take her to the mines and give her the potion to induce her. I can’t wait any longer. My spy tells me that the mudblood’s water broke allover the floor of the Great Hall. Can you imagine the filth that little Harry Potter and his playmates had to eat with?” Voldemort laughed again.

“Yes, sir, it’s quite disgusting. Will we be launching an attack on the castle?”

“Old magic, Severus. Old magic resides within the walls of that school. Once my son is born we will be able to enter any locked door, even ones protected by old magic….or…coven’s. Knott, escort Severus and the girl to the mines. The rest of my faithful servants are awaiting your arrival. And burn the muggle house down. They have no use for it anymore.” They heard the voice of Knott answer Voldemort and then silence fell over the farmhouse.

“Do you smell smoke?” Draco asked. Ron and Harry nodded.

“Hermione went into labor! I have to get back. Fuck, Worth! He’s in the house.” Draco bolted from the barn and ran smack into Voldemort.

“Well, well, what have we here? Young master Malfoy, the blood traitor!” Draco stood stock still but held his head up high, unwavering. “Bow to your master!” Voldemort waved his wand and Draco fell to his knees.

“Search the barn, Knott!” Draco writhed in pain under Voldemort’s wand as green light sprang forth, illuminating the night. The farmhouse continued to burn, the with no sign of the little forest sprite.

“Nothing my Lord. It’s empty.” Draco heard that and didn’t think it possible. How had Harry and Ron eluded Voldemort?

“Take him to the mines. I’ll deal with the traitor there. It seems you are going to get to see your mother Draco.” Voldemort took flight, without any artificial means of flying, broom or otherwise. Draco was hit with a stunning spell and was scooped up and taken by Knott and another Death Eater, and then they were gone.

Harry pulled the Invisibility cloak off. He and Ron had huddled underneath it while the Death Eaters searched the barn. Knott had almost stepped right on them, he was so close to revealing their position.

“Harry we have to save the sprite. Merlin sent him to us, he must be important!"

"Ron, we’re losing them! How are we supposed to find them, if we don’t follow them!” Harry said and Ron looked at the blazing house and then at Harry and he made a choice. They had to go after Draco and Cho. They mounted their brooms and set off after Snape and Cho, Draco and Knott and…Voldemort himself.

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“She’s burning up. Get a wet towel for her head. The baby’s coming Hermione, try to remain clam. Getting upset will only make it hurt more!” Tonks soothed Hermione, who was midway through a particularly hard contraction.

“What do we do Tonks? I don’t anything about birthing babies.”

“I do,” Pansy Parkinson said. “I’m a pureblood. Purebloods have their babies at home. I saw my cousin have her son at home. I was present during the delivery.”

“Ginny, go find Madame Pomfrey! Pansy, okay, you’re on,” Tonks said moving away from Hermione’s bedside. She was writhing and delirious most of the time and the coven was worried. Lupin and Wood and the others were speaking in hushed whispers. They all felt a sense of doom

“Draco!” Hermione called out in her delirium. “Don’t hurt him! Draco!”

“Hermione you must listen to me.” Pansy shook Hermione gently and her eyes popped open. “Do you feel the need to bear down during contractions?” Hermione nodded a no, and Pansy breathed a sigh of relief.

“She isn’t feeling the need to push. This is good. It means we have a little bit of time.”

“Please tell us what to do! Why do our palms not blink red? Clearly Draco and Ron are in trouble.” Lupin shouted in frustration.

“We will be called when we are needed,” Tonks soothed her boyfriend.

“But what if Voldemort’s baby has been born? What if the spawn of evil exists? What if the balance of power has been upset?”

“What do you mean?” Tonks asked with a concerned voice.

“I mean, two babies, one good one evil, what if the spawn of Voldemort has already turned the tide.”

“No. I can still feel the power surging through me and Hermione is connected to Draco in some way. She’s calling out his name and I don’t think it’s because she misses him,” Tonks explained and Lupin seemed to find some small comfort in that small fact.

“Madame Pomfrey is on her way. How’s Hermione?” Ginny returned out of breath.

“Same.” Pansy replied.

“Oh my Gods, they are such idiots!” Lavender Brown said entering the room. A Hufflepuff third year vomited allover her friends dinner when Hermione’s water broke. That set off a chain reaction and soon all the kids were tossing their chunks in the Great Hall. That’s why Madame Pomfrey isn’t here. She’s taking care of all the sick students. Ridiculous!”

“Draco, I’m going to have the baby! It’s coming. I feel it. Where are you?”

“Yes! Yes Hermione, tell us where he is!” Lupin shot to Hermione’s bedside.

“Goblin’s…Mine,” Hermione moaned.

“Hermione!” Ginny yelled and threw herself over Hermione’s body as a blue light engulfed the pregnant seventh year and swept her away.

“She’s gone! She’s gone…” Ginny and the other women of the coven disappeared leaving the men of Merlin’s coven behind.

“Bloody hell, the chests are gone too!” Oliver Wood spun around with a startled expression.

“Right then! We move to Plan B. We find the goblin’s metal mine. That’s where our brothers are.”

“But what about the girls?” Neville asked.

“You saw the blue light. We have to assume that they are fulfilling their roles in the coven. We too must fulfill ours,” Lupin stated plainly.

“But, we weren’t given the sign. Our palms...” Blaise said.

“My brother is out here and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and do nothing,” George said with strength and conviction.

“I too, can not sit here any longer. I leave it up to each of you to decide your destiny,” Lupin quipped, holding his hand out. George placed his hand over Lupin’s. “Solidarity brother!” Wood threw his hand on the pack and then Neville and Blaise followed suit.

“Right then, let’s go!” Lupin said. “Take your wands and your weapons, this time. I don’t know what’s in store for us.”

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“Where are we?” Ginny spun in circles beholding the breathtaking view. Lush green foliage and grasses cushioned her feet. Tonks and Pansy’s mouths fell open.

“Where’s Lavender?” Pansy noted that Lavender was gone.

“I’m over here, look!” Lavender Brown was standing by a great monolith. The other women followed her voice and found themselves standing next to a ring of monolith’s.

“Are we at… Stonehenge?” Ginny said. “My parents took us there once. I don’t remember it looking quite his way though. There were no trees around, and we are clearly in a forest.”

Tonks followed the perimeter of the series of erected monoliths for a few meters. The circle they were standing in was vast, cutting through a dense forest.

“Look! When I try to pass beyond the stones, there is more blue light. It’s beautiful!” Lavender said attempting to step outside the circle.

“Don’t! Don’t break the seal! Come on we have to find Hermione,” Tonks said hurrying back up the hill. The others took off. With their hair piled up on their heads and the flowing gowns, toga style, they appeared as if they belonged in another time entirely.

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“Where am I?” Hermione said to the maiden that stood before her. With her flowing blonde hair, she was Ganieda, sister of Merlin.

“This is Carmarthen, the birth place of my brother.” The maiden walked with grace and beauty, towards her. Hermione was laying in a bed of soft leaves. The maiden knelt next to Hermione and reached for her hand, just as a brutally strong contraction hit her. The intensity took her breath way.

“Breathe and focus your energies on the child within your womb. The time is close.”

“Hermione!” Ginny was the first to find Hermione. The maiden raised her hand and Ginny ceased in her movement. Tonks and the other girls stumbled upon them now too. Hermione was laying under a small shelter, reminicient of an ancient gazebo made from sticks and wood of the forest. Flowering ivy snaked its way up the support columns, the greenery hanging down from the roof of the tiny manmade structure. Underneath Hermione was a simple white cloth and she writhed in pain as the baby edged itself down the birth canal. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Kneel and clasp hands. Let your energies flow into Hermione.” The contraction passed and Hermione struggled onto her elbows.

“Please, Draco…What of Draco?”

“The prophecy is being fulfilled.” Ginny and Tonks breathed a sigh of relief at this, but Hermione was not comforted by her words. For all she knew, Draco was supposed to die in order to fulfill the prophecy.

“I saw him…He was taken into a great mine where goblin’s and Death Eaters harbor him. It is cold and dark and wet. Can not the prophecy save him?” Hermione plead with the maiden.

“Shhh, you must rest. You must focus all of your energies onto the baby.”

“Please, I have to know what will happen to Draco.”

“He is plagued with fear and self loathing. He holds his own fate in his hands. There must be a rebirth.”

“Will not the coven save him?” Hermione asked frantically.

“It is up to him now. I have seen a fork in his path. He must choose between that which is safe, and that which is right. Only then can the coven persevere.” Hermione thought about her words and then the most excruciating contraction hit her in a wave of agony she had the urge to bear down, and did.

“Hold her legs up, the time is here. The baby is coming,” Ganieda said and Ginny and Tonks pushed Hermione’s legs up.

“I see the top of his head Hermione!” Ginny said with tears of joy in her eyes. “He has blond hair like Draco. Oh Hermione, just a little more, you can do it!” Ginny spoke encouraging words, as tears burst from Hermione’s eyes.

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“Draco, my son! You live!” Narcissa tried to move forward to reach her son but her chains caught and yanked her back towards the dank rock face. Draco was punched and kicked by two masked Death Eaters as they cursed obscenities at him.

“My brother is sitting in Azkaban because of you, you filthy piece of rubbish. Marrying a mudblood, you are a disgrace to all purebloods everywhere,” the Death Eater said, spitting on Draco’s face. He stumbled to his feet, intent on fighting to his last dying breath, but then pain ripped through his body.

“Crucio!”

He felt every cell in his body scream out as the green light seared his flesh.

“Traitor!” The treacherous light ceased and Draco felt his body being yanked up by his hair. His eyes focused on the man before him. The eyes behind the silver mask were familiar.

“Crabbe? Is that you?” Draco said, spiting blood from his mouth. “Let my mother go. She doesn’t deserve any of this,” Draco plead, but his request was met with a fist to his face. He fell back to the cold hard ground. He heard a whimpering in the corner and he recognized the voice. It was Cho Chang and from the sound of her cries, she was in labor. Draco’s thoughts traveled to his wife. Why had he left Hermione? Was Hermione alright?

“Draco, Lucius will help us. Please don’t despair.” Draco crawled to his mother and wrapped his arms around the chained woman.

“I have to get you out of here,” Draco whispered to his mother. He could feel her ribs, her frail and gaunt frame wilted and weak. He could barely see in the torch lit chamber of the mine. He turned her face to the diffuse glow of the light and he could see that his mother’s face was riddled with cuts and bruises. Her eyes were sunken in and her pallor was a ghostly shade of white.

“What are we supposed to do with him?” Crabbe said to a fellow Death Eater.

“The Dark Lord said he will be a sacrifice for the unborn.” A whimper from the corner. Cho was fully awake and alert and near hysterics as she cowered in the corner by herself.

“Shut up whore!” One of the Death Eaters’s kicked Cho Chang in the leg and she cried out.

“Stop!” Draco yelled out, but then the green light was on him again. He was going to die right here and then. He knew it. He could see the sadness in his mother’s eyes, staring at him from above his tortured body. He was definitely succumbing to death. He could feel himself drifting away, a numbing sensation replacing the extreme pain from the Cruciatus curse.

“Enough, Knott! The Dark Lord doesn’t want him killed just yet,” said the voice of Severus Snape. “Help me move them to the vestibule. The Dark Lord is ready for our guests.” Knott grumbled and cursed and reminded Snape, that he was not his master, but then did as he asked and grabbed Cho Chang by the hair, dragging her away as the girl kicked and screamed. Crabbe released Narcissa Malfoy from her binds and she fell on Draco. Draco kissed his mother’s face and whispered that he would free them both. Narcissa mumbled some incoherency about Lucius and then she too was dragged away by the Death Eater, leaving only Snape and Draco in the cold dankness of the mine.

“I will sacrifice myself to kill the child, once it is born. I’m sorry Draco. I have done everything in my power to save your mother from a fate worse then death.”

“Lies! I stood and watched you kill Dumbledore. You just wanted to take my father’s place at the Dark Lord’s side.”

“We don’t have time for this. You must listen. Dumbledore asked me to kill him. He was already dying. I work for the Order, and I am prepared to die for the Order…for my sweet, Lily Potter.” Draco had no time to process what he was being told. He had to get out of this hellhole. He knew Hermione needed him and his mother…God, his mother. He couldn’t let her die this way, in this awful place.

“Save my mother!”

“Draco!,” Snape shook him hard at this. “The baby will kill your child! The darkness will spread and consume everything! All muggles and muggle-borns will die! Voldemort won’t stop there. He will take over the world. He has built an army of goblin’s and werewolves. The baby must die! The Dark Lord knows of the prophecy of Merlin. He is counteracting the prophecy by having a child of his own. Whatever beast lurks inside the girl will be all of our undoing. The child must die! When the time is right, I will kill the child. If anything happens to me, I need you to swear that you will do it. This beast can not live, or everyone you’ve ever known or loved will die! Including your wife and child. Do you understand me!” Snape shook him violently at his, the seriousness in his tone evident.

“Yes, yes, I will do it,” Draco said coughing and sputtering, the metallic taste of his own blood, swirling in his mouth. Snape hauled Draco to his feet, dragging him into Voldemort’s throne room, buried deep beneath the Earth’s crust in the dark and foreboding Goblin Mine.

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“It’s a never-ending tunnel of mazes! We’ll never find the right bloody path,” Ron cursed, his wand lit as he and Harry Potter trod through the cavernous tunnels and passageways of the old Goblin mine. They crept deeper into the mine, and now Harry could smell the distinctive stench of death. The putrid smell of rotting flesh made him want to vomit. His scar was pricking and burning steadily, the deeper they went.

“Ron, what are these stones buried in the walls?” Harry said, shining his wand’s light on the wall of the mine next to him.

“Looks like crystals. I don’t know much about this place Harry, but I seem to remember Dad talking about a goblin mine, where they mined precious metals and stones. They kept it secret from the wizards though. Didn’t want us to steal their fortune. You know how the goblin’s are.” Harry nodded and touched one of the crystals. An illuminating light shone from the crystal when he touched it. Both Ron and Harry backed up. Then suddenly the crystal began to move, and transform. Harry saw a tiny face pop up from the crystal and then a leg.

“Look Ron. It’s alive!” Ron and Harry moved closer to the stone, watching in awe as tiny legs sprang from the rock. The legs looked like fine china with a glassy appearance. Two more legs sprang forth and Ron backed up.

“What?” Harry looked at Ron.

“I don’t like all those legs. It reminds me of the time in the forest when bloody Hagrid sent us to talk to that beastly spider.”

“Oh Ron, look, it’s harmless.” Harry reached out and touched the strange life form with his finger. “Ow!” Harry pulled his finger back when he felt a pinch. Suddenly, great fangs burst forth from the face of the form and then the entire wall bust loose, rubble and boulders falling all around Harry and Ron.

“Run!” Harry shouted, but the rock was coming down all around them. Both Ron and Harry fell to the ground. It was Ron that saw it first. He turned his head when he sensed its presence, and what he saw terrified him more then anything he had ever seen. It was massive, with eight glass-like legs and great fangs. It lunged at Ron and he scampered forward, trying in vain to fumble for his wand that had fallen and was lost in the rubble somewhere. It was some kind of a giant cavern arachnid.

“Harry, do something!” Another crystal was transforming right next to his head. He looked around and now the entire ground was moving. There were scads of these things and when the wall was brought down, they all sprang to life.

“I’m trying!” Harry said as the monster lunged at Ron.

Review!?

I’m thinking two maybe three more chapters left is all. I will be trying to tie up both of my stories in the next few days. I want to focus completely on my book, but I don’t want to leave unfinished stories hanging around if people are reading and enjoying them, so let me know what ya think! Thanks so much for the reviews and those sticking with this story.